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Wednesday, September 2, 2015

South Carlsbad State Beach Camping Trip with the Little Kids

This past week, our family visited Carlsbad State Beach our RV. We live about 20 minutes away. We took 2 kids, 2 vehicles, 5 large baby gear items, 4 ride on toys, 2 tents, a boogie board a cooler full of food, 4 bottles of wine, and plenty of water to spend a few overcast days in the sand.

We made our reservations through Reserve America a little over 6 months in advance. In February, you can reserve campsites for the entire month of August. I recommend making your reservations at midnight because most were booked when we woke up early and booked our Sunday Monday trip.

It was mostly overcast. Our site was across from the cliffs overlooking the beach but it was spacious. When you look at a map of this campground, you will notice that it is literally on Coast Highway and we were literally under the traffic light. This is not to say that it was a terrible campground or campsite. I would just choose a site that was beachside or at least away from the streetlights if you have a choice.

We brought most of the baby gear because we have the space in the RV so the baby was happy the entire time. It may seem like a bit much, but we bring a pretty big bin of toys for the baby and it keeps her highly entertained. The same goes for the boy. We bring a ton of toys, scooter, bike, art, craft, books. One of our FAVORITE books of all time is one you light up with a flashlight!

We fill a little water table with rinse water. We add things we find or toys from the dollar store.

We had the perfect little shelter for the beach. We had just enough food and wood to sustain us. Well our friends brought us some wood and hung out for a bit. We kept saying we should stop into the camp store but we never made it. There's something nice about being able to go and camp and have everything you need with you.

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The greatest con to this campsite is that there is a huge cliff where the campground is located. You need to either walk down hill or take a mega flight of stairs to the beach and back up again. One of the main reasons we like staying overnight on the beach is that we get to set up camp down on the beach and climb up for lunch and a break, then go back down again.

This meant that I climbed about 7000 stairs during this trip, always with the baby in her carrier. You can guess how my back felt the next day after sleeping on the RV mattress...

There was pretty decent boogie boarding at this beach. We did some wave jumping, swimming, the baby dipped her toes in. There were rocks and shells to look at... We saw some guys surfing...

but of course our kid is obsessed with glow sticks. No camp trip is complete without them.

Somehow we keep ending up with these plastic chemical filled toys in the RV but I hear the obsession passes after the raver/club kid/Miley Cyress phase at the absolute latest.

We always make sure to have a campfire.

Glow sticks provided a lot of artistic entertainment. He designed monsters of light throughout the night!

About the baby granny suit... I shopped at Nordstrom Rack and saw the cute owl print on this pajama. I figured we could use a little long sleeved pajama for the trip. Plus it came with a cap! It kept her head nice and cozy at night. I didn't realize it would make the baby look like a little old lady...

She's a magical food blessing little old lady fairy!

Cooking outside is always so much fun and it was so good this time! It must be the fairy!

Selfies...

and FOOD! Vegan chili and field roast hot dogs. The food was AWESOME! Always my favorite.

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And then, another magical thing happened... it rained. We don't get much of this around here. See how puzzled he looks?